Creating two or more devices which can interoperate with one another becomes increasingly difficult as the complexity of the devices increases. The difficulty of designing interoperable devices further increases when individual devices are designed by disparate entities. To reduce such difficulties, standards were created, the adherence to which would, at least in theory, provide for the interoperability of two or more devices. Thus, for example, any bolt conforming to a particular thread spacing standard can interoperate with any nut of the same size conforming to the same thread spacing standard. From a consumer's perspective, the standard, and the conformance of a device to the standard, provided an assurance of interoperability. Consequently, a consumer having, for example, a bolt conforming to a particular thread spacing need only search for a nut of the same size conforming to the same thread spacing to be assured that the two would, in fact, interoperate.
In the computer science arts, any given device can comprise multiple layers of both hardware and software, adding further difficulty to the task of designing interoperable devices. The traditional reliance on standards does not alleviate the difficulty, because of the myriad of standards created for such multiple layers. More significantly, from a consumer's perspective, even learning of the standard, to know what to look for, can be daunting, given the quantity of relevant standards in existence. Furthermore, even once the consumer has learned about the relevant standards, various nuances can exist which, if the consumer is not aware of them, can result in the purchase of two products that the consumer believes to be interoperable, but which are not, in fact, interoperable. For example, a wireless music player and a pair of wireless headphones can both indicate support for a common wireless communication standard. However, the wireless headphones can support an aspect of the communication standard that provides for stereo communications while the wireless music player may only support an aspect of the communication standard that provides for mono communications. A consumer, having bought both of these devices expecting interoperability based on the devices' indication of support for a common standard, would be understandably displeased in obtaining only mono sound from the stereo-capable headphones.
Attempting to communicate each aspect of a supported standard through, for example, product advertising or packaging, such as via “Experience Icons” displayed on such advertising and packaging, may result only in further consumer confusion. More complex devices, such as the ubiquitous personal computer with a common operating system, can support so many standards and aspects of standards that any retail packaging or marketing of such a product would be quickly overwhelmed with nothing but indicators of such support.
Because a consumer is not likely to purchase a product whose interoperability is confusing, merchants have attempted to encourage consumer spending by providing a list of compatible peripheral products for a primary product already owned by the consumer. In particular, merchants have provided to consumers lists of memory expansion products that are physically compatible with a personal computer selected by the consumer. While such lists were feasible when most devices required a personal computer to be fully operational, more modern products seeking to interoperate with other computing devices, including cellular telephones, televisions, automobiles, and other computing devices, render such lists highly impractical. Indeed, even the lists of compatible peripheral products that were offered provided only a listing of physically compatible memory expansion products based on nothing more than a search for the physical requirements of memory expansion products that can be accepted by the consumer's personal computer. Furthermore, such systems are mono-directional in that they only identify compatible memory expansion products once the consumer has already specified a single, specific, personal computer for which they are shopping.